Thriving Ivory
by The Lady Avaritia
Summary: Every breath, every hour, has come to this. His touch is ingrained deep into his skin, way past his bones. He is permanent. Jir/Oro


**Title: Thriving Ivory**

**Rating: T**  
><strong>Spoilers: G<strong>eneral

**Characters**: Jir/Oro

**Summary: Every breath, every hour, has come to this. His touch is ingrained deep into his skin, way past his bones. He is permanent.**

**Disclaimer: **disclaimed

**Author: **_Lady Avaritia_

Orochimaru is most beautiful when he's sleeping, Jiraiya has noticed. So, as the sun beats brutally through the dusty moth nibbled curtains, he tries to savor the precious few moments before he wakes, irritated by the heat and sunlight.

His pale white skin almost blends with the cheap cotton of the sheets. His hair, like a spill of ink on the pillow frames the perfection of his sharp face. He is relaxed in sleep, a rarity these days, and he looks tired. His cheekbones jut out painfully, almost as if they'd tear through the papery skin of his cheeks. He has drawn in on himself, his spidery fingers clutching the blanket close to his chest. The ink of his summoning tattoo stands out bluntly on the chalk whiteness of his forearm, like a permanent bruise.

He came in in the middle of the night, carrying the stench of death and decay and blood and battlefield, and his ANBU uniform had been practically soaked with heavy sticky blood, and sweat, and gore, and what looked like pieces of brain, but Jiraiya hadn't asked.

He hadn't spoken, and his pale face had remained stony and empty. He hadn't moved as Jiraiya led him in the stinky hot piece of crap he was renting as his home. There had been nothing in him as Jiraiya moved his large hands clumsily to remove the ruined clothes.

'We won,' Orochimaru whispered finally. 'We won over Mist.'

Then he moved, with that lightning speed he was famed for, and pressed himself against Jiraiya's broad chest, his lips easily finding the other man's. His kiss was brutal, angry, bruising, and forceful, as he pinned Jiraiya to the table. With this aggression he made up for his role in their love-making afterwards. (He would never admit to being a bottom.)

'We won,' he repeated breathlessly, as he traced his lips down the hard panels of Jiraiya's stomach.

Jiraiya dug his rough hands in the soft silk of Orochimaru's hair and pulled him up for another kiss, and led them stumbling to the bedroom, knocking down useless junk in a frenzied hurry to get as much skin on skin as possible. He throws Orochimaru's lean frame on the mattress that serves as a bed, and climbs over him.

The rest isn't pretty. The rest is hips and hands, tongues and teeth, and nails. It's not gentle of romantic, because neither of them is gentle or romantic, not when Orochimaru is covered in sweat and blood, still high on adrenaline and victory, senses still numb, and mind swirling, all one hundred and eighty seven points of his IQ dancing in maddening, jarring patterns; and not with Jiraiya desperate to just feel his lover again, to bring some sort of closure again between them, to melt the ice blocks that have frozen their hearts in a permanent deadlock, to literally fuck some emotions back into Orochimaru's perfect porcelain body.

And that was the night before, when he collapsed over the lean body of his exhausted lover, and this is now, as the sun breaks through the window, and Orochimaru lay all luminous pale perfection, between the soiled sheets, and the thin line of blue veins on his arms makes him seem cracked and broken.

With a sigh Jiraiya wraps one large muscular arm around the other man's slender waist, and pulls him closer. Orochimaru's eyes flutter for a moment, and then he sighs contently and buries his face in the hollow between Jiraiya's neck and shoulder. There's something poetic about the way his thin body fits in the other's embrace.

Jiraiya buries his nose in the raven locks that smell like blood and gore and sweat, and under that, of Orochimaru.

It's not pretty, or romantic, or beautiful. This is the real world, and their enthusiastic fucking is brutal and ugly, and the only thing that keeps them anchored.

The long red scratches on Jiraiya's muscled back, the violent bruises on Orochimaru's jutting hips… Every breath, every hour, has come to this.Orochimaru's touch is ingrained deep into his skin, way past his bones. He is permanent. They both are.

And it's just the right amount of right to keep them on the safe side of the edge where Orochimaru is slipping into darkness more and more… and sometimes, Jiraiya wonders if he'll be enough to keep him anchored, or if they'll both tumble down in a magnificent fall.

But now, with the sun trailing intricate spider webs on the mattress, and Orochimaru pressed firmly against him, almost melting into his chest… it's as perfect as they get.


End file.
